


cabaletta, or your ex-lover is dead

by buttface



Series: cabaletta [2]
Category: Show By Rock!! - All Media Types
Genre: Anal, Bitterness, Ex Sex, Exes, M/M, Messy, Nostalgia, POV Second Person, POV Second Person: Rom, Porn with Feelings, Rimming, canon-typical furries, gratuitous post-world saving jam session hookup, semi-reconciliation, shuuzo is having a bossy bottom kind of a night
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-11
Updated: 2020-05-11
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:27:47
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,246
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24107479
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/buttface/pseuds/buttface
Summary: Shuu☆Zo wants to confess his sins. Rom just wants to get fucked. Nobody really gets what they're after.*You were asked to help save the world, and doing that required setting aside your bitterness towards Shuu, but it was only supposed to be temporary. It wasn’t supposed to make room for all the old half-congealed feelings to come bubbling back up when he smiled at you, guitar in hand, just like before. You don’t want this, you don’t want to give him a second chance, you don’t want to want to give him a second chance.You know abstractly that you will probably regret this, but why should you have to be the one to feel regret? He certainly never has.
Relationships: Rom/Shu Zo (Show By Rock!!)
Series: cabaletta [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1688323
Kudos: 9





	cabaletta, or your ex-lover is dead

**Author's Note:**

> Technically second in a series, but you don't need the first part. It's just Rom having some feelings.
> 
> Exists in a stitched together patchwork canon of Fes-a-Live, the anime, and my attempt to reverse engineer the plot of the live stages from pixiv fancomics. LBR it's not like there's a ton of sensible canon to begin with. Don't worry about it.
> 
> Content note: Everything is consensual and everybody has a good time, but Rom's motivations are not entirely tender or affectionate. He's got a lot of complicated feelings. It's not terribly edgy or anything but if you wanted fluff, this probably isn't what you're looking for.
> 
> Finally, yes, I'm hooked on second person POV. It's so intimate!

His hair is different and his laugh is different and his cologne is different but the way he backs you up against the wall and rolls his hips into yours is the same. 

Not quite the same. He never had to be so direct with you back then. You’d spent so long around each other, you always understood each other regardless. Or you thought you did at least. The last few years have broken that down, or he’s done too thorough a job of changing himself. You never know what he’s thinking anymore.

Well. You know some things. He always did like to wear thin pants.

“Rommmm,” he coos in your ear, all sparkles and tease. An old lover’s habit in a stranger’s voice.

“Shuu,” you answer warily, not ready to commit to putting your hands anywhere other than loosely at your sides.

“ _Rom_ ,” he repeats, an octave lower, achingly familiar now, and at that you instinctively rock back against him, clutching at his hips as if you could keep that him here. “I missed you.”

“You don’t get to miss me,” you growl, but it loses something considering you’re speaking it into the base of his neck with your eyes shut, feeling his soft hair brush against your eyelids. (You remember the ghost of it against your inner thighs, too; you were always so sensitive there, he taught you that.) How can it be so soft still when he must bleach it all the time? It would be easy to see dark roots with his face on billboards twenty feet tall everywhere. The rich and famous really must have access to better things, it doesn’t feel any different than it did as its natural brown-black. 

“And yet,” he laughs, leaning his head against yours, just a little, and leaning his hips against you a little more, trapping you against the wall. You can smell the base note of sweat in his hair now, under the hairspray, and something coils deep in the pit of your stomach at the sense-memory.

You’re pretty sure he would let you go if you asked, or (more likely, since it’s you) if you took a swing at him; he’s a sellout, not a predator. His movement against you is playful, not malicious. But he’s also offering you the opportunity _not_ to ask.

(As if it wasn’t you who started this. But you would be happy to put the blame on him.)

You didn’t want this. You’re sure you didn’t. You were asked to help save the world, and doing that required setting aside your bitterness towards Shuu, but it was only supposed to be temporary. It wasn’t supposed to make room for all the old half-congealed feelings to come bubbling back up when he smiled at you, guitar in hand, just like before. You don’t want this, you don’t want to give him a second chance, you don’t want to _want_ to give him a second chance. 

It must just be the relief of defeating Victorious, if that’s the right way to describe what happened. That’s all it is. There was a huge looming threat, but everything came out okay. You know about the release of tension, like going on a bar crawl after the quarterly reports are finally in. 

That must be what made you pull him by the frilly sleeve into a dark hallway and kiss him like he’d never told you your dreams were an illusion. That’s why you were happy when he grinned triumphantly at you after. You know abstractly that you will probably regret this, but why should you have to be the one to feel regret? _He_ certainly never has.

He kisses you lightly at the corner of your mouth and you can feel him smiling against you, so of course you have to kiss him back harder, properly, with a hint of fang. Not enough to bleed, but maybe it’ll bruise.

“Not here,” you say, the best compromise you can offer the part of your brain that wants _not at all_. You don’t know if it’s the sensible part or the angry part, or if they’re the same part.

"It'd hardly be the first time we did it in public."

“That was different.” _That wasn’t you,_ you mean, but it would be meaningless to say it.

He looks skeptical, but relents, allowing some space between your bodies. You hate that you want to take it back. “We can’t go to mine. There will be fewer questions if I don't come back at all than if I come back with a guest, I’m afraid. I imagine you aren’t in a hurry to show up in the gossip magazines on my arm.”

“What are you, a prisoner? Is that the glamorous idol life?”

He laughs, unperturbed. “It's my workplace, Rom. Why, would you fuck me in your office? Bend me over your desk, among the pens and calculators? I could be into that.” He traces the swirl of a paperclip on your chest with a fingertip. “Let’s go to yours. It’s been a while.”

It has. You wanted to keep it that way. But he has a point; you’ve somehow avoided your previous connection becoming public knowledge, and it’s probably best not to tempt fate on that front any further. And you really don’t want to have your ill-advised reunion hookup on the permanent record. “What about the twins?” you ask, instead of outright admitting that you’re taking him home.

“I’ve sent them home in the limousine already. They deserve a good night’s rest after all that. And I deserve a good night _without_ rest.” As if he ever slept, as if he didn’t always stay up all night writing songs, chewing pens and drinking coffee, keeping you up worrying. At least maybe this will be more fun for you. “Do you need to look after your kids?”

“They’re not --” You think for a moment about your bandmates and realize this isn’t an argument you can really win. “Let me tell them I’m heading out, anyway. I’ll have to promise to treat them to dinner tomorrow.”

Shuu smiles at you. “That’s sweet. You take such good care of them.”

You don’t want him to have feelings about your relationship with your new bandmates. He doesn’t deserve to tell you if you’re taking good care of them. What would he know about it? 

You’re sure Yaiba can tell you’re up to something ill-advised; he makes a face like he’s considering telling you to stop, even though he doesn’t know what to stop you from. But Crow and Aion are more interested in the promise of future ramen, and Yaiba seems to accept that you’re a grown man who can make his own decisions. Someday they’ll realize that making good decisions isn’t necessarily a big part of what being an adult means, not even for a salaryman, but it is true that you know better. You just don’t care about that right now.

You work so hard. You try to do everything right. Haven’t you earned a little mistake? You just want to bury your exhaustion inside someone else’s body for once. Being near Shuu makes you feel drunk on memories and anger. You deserve to indulge in it for once.

“Hm.” Shuu’s tapping his finger to his lips, thinking. “I can’t go out looking like this, it’ll draw too much attention. And my disguise is in the limousine.”

“You bring a disguise with you?”

“Of course. Even I need a break sometimes. And my fans are everywhere, after all~☆”

You don’t understand how he can _say_ a star, but you suppose he’s learned a lot since you’ve been apart.

“I’ve got my work clothes,” you tell him, resigned to your part in this farce. “Try not to wrinkle them.”

“Salaryman Shuu☆Zo, can you imagine?” he says, delighted. You can’t. No office on Sound Planet could contain him. 

He puts on your blazer over his own jacket; he always did prefer unnecessary layers. Somehow he manages to tuck his coattails into the legs of your trousers. Were your clothes always that big on him? Only the padding of the costume underneath keeps them from falling off.

He seems pleased with the result though. “There. And at least I have my sunglasses.”

“How does that help? Nobody wears sunglasses except idols in disguise.”

He snaps them open with a grin. “It’s not about looking _normal_. It’s plausible deniability. As long as I’m not 100% in character, people don’t believe it’s me. Why would Shuu☆Zo be walking through their neighborhood at that time of night? They just assume they saw someone who happens to look a bit like me, what a funny coincidence.”

You realise this is the longest you've spent around him since … before. These days he usually just shows up in your life long enough to be mysterious and irritating. When you’re like this, it feels dangerously easy to fall into old patterns. You watch him fidgeting with his hair in a mirror and half expect him to ask you how it looks in the back.

_"Why do you always worry about that? Nobody's going to see it."_

_"You will. I want to give you a good view."_

He's probably got someone whose whole job it is to check how his hair looks in the back, now.

You don’t much relish the idea of being cooped up in public transit with a thinly disguised popstar who has to try very hard not to sparkle, no matter how good he thinks his misdirection skills are. The limousine is out as well if you aren’t trying to attract attention to your proximity to Shuu. But if you get off the train a few stations early, where it'll be quiet this time of night, then your apartment isn’t much further. And maybe a walk would help clear your mind.

It’s quiet out, considering how close everything just came to conquest or destruction. You don’t suppose anyone would believe it if you told them. Everyone’s gotten used to the occasional darkmonster attack, sure, but they trust people like you to keep that sort of thing in check. Well. People like _him_ , anyway.

“I didn’t know I was signing up to save the world,” you say when the silence between you threatens to spill over from awkward to outright hostile.

“Oh? It’s the best part of the job.”

“I thought that was supposed to be the music. Who made _us_ the first line of defense?”

“It’s physiology. We were created to live and die by music. Did you know, in the whole of the known universe myumons are the only creatures with melodisian stones? Music is our hearts. Our fans entrust their hearts to us when they come to our lives. When we play, we protect everyone’s dreams~☆”

He’s not wrong, exactly, but it sounds so self-aggrandizing from him, especially when he ends it with his usual nonsense. “Your fans aren’t here, you know. You can stop doing _that_. The Shuu☆Zo voice.”

“Hmmhmmm ☆. I can try. It's been a very long time since I played Shuu.”

“Was he just a role to you, then? Our life together?”

“It would be if I tried to be him now. You can't spend years transforming every part of yourself and just turn it off like a light switch. This _is_ the real me. Do you really hate it so much?”

Until he says it, you don’t realize how much you’d hoped that someday he’d take off the disguise and reveal the old Shuu again, your friend, your lover, your teammate. That it was all some kind of mistake. But he really is gone.

“Yes.”

You wish he’d stop giving you that smile. “I’m not so different, Rom. Nobody can survive for long without changing. You’re not the same person you were back then either, are you?”

“Whose fault is that?”

Maybe you’re half hoping to antagonize him enough that he’ll make the decision on his own to call this off. You aren’t sure anymore what you’re doing, but you aren’t sure what he’s doing either, so you just hope the surprise when you find out will be a good one.

He gives you a look that doesn’t explain anything, but he keeps walking beside you.

It’s getting cold by the time you get home. The walk has been just long enough to frustrate your carnal urges and make your choices feel more and more absurd. You start to wish you had taken Shuu’s suggestion and fucked in the amusement park, while you still had the excuse of having only just escaped death. Now it feels less like a post-deadline bar crawl and more like drinking from a brown paper bag poorly hidden under your desk.

Shuu hums appreciatively as he walks in behind you. “You haven’t even redecorated. How nostalgic. I’ll put my shoes in the usual place, shall I?”

You sigh. He’s really not helping. “Can't we just pretend we don't know each other?”

“Oooh, you want to roleplay being a lucky fan?” He finishes taking off your borrowed clothes and hands them to you with an exaggerated wink. “Rom, I'm surprised at you.”

“Someone who doesn't know who you are. Someone from space.”

“I've been there too, darling. They loved me.” He grins his most winning pop idol grin, the one you hate the most, before it fades into something else, something you don’t recognize from TV. “No, I'd rather just be someone who cares very much about you --”

“-- You don't get to feel that either, Shuu --”

“And yet.” He gives you a wry smile. “Someone who cares very much about you, and who you happen to know is a fantastic lay. Wouldn't it be nice to pretend for a moment that you don't mind?”

It would be. So why does he have to make it so difficult all the time? “Do you want to shower first?”

“Sweet of you to remember. I'm afraid you might lose your nerve while I'm in there though.”

There isn’t much to say to that.

He gives you a sympathetic look and you hate it. “Oh Rom. We don't have to, you know. We aren't horny teenagers anymore.“

“You came all this way,” you say, as if you can blame him for what you want.

“I came to see an old friend. You don’t owe me anything.”

“It's not you I'm worried about.”

“Rom.” He puts a hand on your shoulder, lightly, as if poised for you to flinch. You don’t react, just so he doesn’t get to feel like he understands. “I didn’t come here to hurt you.”

“Funny, but I don’t think I can take your word for it.”

“Do you want me to leave?”

You don’t know. You want him to not be him. You want him to be someone else, someone you wonder at times if you imagined. 

“Can I kiss you, at least?” he asks, lifting a hand to your cheek. He still has the guitar calluses; you didn’t expect that, or how much you missed them.

After a moment, you nod, and he presses his mouth to yours again. 

Earlier he was teasing, with notes of hunger underneath. Now he’s just … solid. You remember your first kiss, all teeth and caught lips and laughter, and how you learned over time to fit your mouths together. He hasn’t forgotten, it seems. His lips are dry but he moves them so carefully against yours, soft and full, in little gentle motions. 

A little noise you didn’t mean to make escapes your lips when he pulls away for a moment, and he leans back in to catch and swallow it. In all your anger towards him, you forgot how attentive he could be. He probably noticed the shiver running down your spine, too.

God, you missed this. You hate to confirm it, but you missed this. All the enthusiasm you lost in the walk home is back with reinforcements as he moves his mouth against yours, pressing just a little more firmly. 

You could close your eyes, pretend none of the last few years happened. That you’re still just kids with a shared dream and a surfeit of enthusiasm. Wouldn’t that be nice?

His hand is still on your cheek, the other tucked behind his back. You don’t want his chivalry right now, you want the fire that lit up those dark basement stages and kept you warm at night. You kiss him back, harder, opening your mouth against his so he can sneak a tongue in. He follows your lead and you reward him with a deep moan, grabbing fistfuls of his jacket and pulling him against you. 

If he had any doubts about the state of your arousal, he’ll have firsthand evidence now. The fabric of your pants may be thick, but your cock is thicker.

He pulls away, leans his forehead to yours. “If you want it, then say it. I won’t do anything until you do.”

“… Yes.”

“ _Say_ it.”

You take a deep breath, in, out. You still feel it. “I want it. I want you. So fuck me.”

“Good boy.”

He pulls your vest from your shoulders, briefly trapping your arms behind you, and licks along an exposed clavicle. As soon as his hands are free of your vest, they’re playing along your abs, sliding across the sweat-slick surfaces and appreciating the nooks and crannies. He always did love your muscles.

Time to give him a show, then. You pick him up, lifting with your arms under his thighs, enjoying his gasp of surprise quickly giving way to delight. “You better be taking me to the bedroom,” he says, though his attempt at a dominating tone is somewhat spoiled by laughter.

“Not a second too soon.”

You lay him on his back on the bed and trap him with a hungry kiss, feeling him run his hands eagerly down your bare arms.

“This isn’t how I imagined this going,” you admit between wet open-mouthed kisses, trying to fit your hands under his jacket.

“Oh? What _did_ you imagine?” he asks, delighted.

“I thought it’d be angrier. Rougher. I thought it would be more of a fight.”

He nips at your jawline. “Fight me on stage instead, if you think you can get to my level.”

“Shuu.”

“I mean it. I want that. But I have other plans for you here.” 

He flips you so your back is on the bed, knees bent against the edge. You forget sometimes how strong he is. He reaches down and makes quick work of your belt buckle while he nips gently along your throat.

“Stay there,” he tells you, punctuated with a quick, hard kiss. Then he’s climbing off of you, kneeling before you to undo your pants and effortlessly remove them along with your boxers.

He’s between your legs now and his breath is hot and wet and you want to scream with tension but you’re too stubborn. He takes his time admiring you there, hands tucked behind his back in an incongruous pose. When he finally puts his mouth to you you hiss out a swear and you can feel him smiling against your balls as he mouths at them all too gently. You’ve had too long a dry spell; you don’t want him to know how close you are just from that. You can’t give him that satisfaction.

“There’s something I want to try,” he murmurs, and he runs his tongue up between your balls, only to change direction and move downwards, nose following his mouth. You can feel him breathing you in deep, inhaling sweat and musk from the sensitive skin. His hands caress your legs and move towards your ass, and you’re about to point out where your half-empty bottle of lube is when instead you feel the warm, wet muscle of his tongue against your asshole.

Fuck. That’s new.

You must have said it out loud because he laughs before pressing his mouth against you again, hands gently spreading you open for him. “I’ve had a lot of time to think,” he says, though you can barely hear him over the muffling presence of your own cock. “About things I’d like to do someday.”

He’s been more imaginative than you, it seems. God it feels good, as eager and probing as a finger but hot and textured and wet. He presses it flat to lap at you, then points it to push into your hole, earning another curse and your toes curling against his shoulders. You make the mistake of looking down at him, sweat-damp streaked hair and the same bright eyes looking up at you through long eyelashes, framed by your own legs and your balls against his forehead. 

You’ll never be able to pass one of those billboards again without getting hard. 

You can’t take much more of this, feather-soft hair against your inner thighs and clever fingers on your taint and that tongue, the one that used to form the words to the songs you still hear in your dreams, the one that used to delicately trace your mouth, now teasing into you, filthy and hot, pushing but never filling you up like you need. You wish he could fuck you properly with it.

“Not yet,” he murmurs, suddenly pulling away and wiping his mouth on his sleeve. He nips at the inside of your thigh and laughs at your frustrated growl. “I’m not ready to let you finish.”

“Just hurry up and fuck me,” you fire back, squirming at the sudden loss of contact. God, you’re pathetic, so easy to push from standoffish to desperate and begging. 

“Hmm, I’m not sure we have time for that,” he teases, standing now, urging you to lie flat, further up the bed. His voice slides back and forth between modes, bright and sparkling one moment, then low and sultry and achingly familiar. “As much as I’d love to knot in you again. I could have you at my mercy for as long as the tie lasts. How many more times do you think I could make you cum before then?”

You have some idea. You’d managed to stop those memories floating back up on long lonely nights, but it’s going to be much harder after this.

He straddles your stomach, hands on your chest, frills tickling at your bare skin. Was he always this light? It always used to be you pushing him down as he laughed, rising up to meet you with a warm, joyful mouth. “I think tonight I’d rather feel you coming inside of me.”

“At least take your clothes off,” you growl. “I’m not fucking you in costume. Otherwise I’ll have to leave a mark somewhere it doesn’t cover.”

“So demanding. My fans would kill to see me like this.”

“You can have your fans fuck you instead if you’d rather,” as if you’d let him go at this point, with everything that’s swirling around inside you. “If you want _my_ cock, take your clothes off.”

He poses while he undresses, all artfully outstretched limbs and precisely positioned fingers. You can’t tell where the line between irony and habit is with him anymore. Can he do anything anymore without being conscious of his audience, how to move to best show himself off? He must have practiced for so long, steps and motions repeated over and over until they become second nature.

It makes him feel less and less like Shuu. You loved to look at Shuu for who he was, or for who you thought he was anyway. It didn’t feel as much like something he was deliberately enticing out of you. But when he rolls off you just long enough to peel himself out of his impossibly tight pants, giving you a full view of his firm ass and thighs perfectly framing his long cock from behind, you have to admit he knows what he’s doing.

What are you doing? You know you’re never going to forget who he was. You know he’s not going to stop being the most popular idol in Midi City, not even in your bed. Whatever you hoped for from this, you aren’t going to get it.

But then he straddles you again and leans in close, threading his fingers between yours, and his face looks just like it used to, without pretense. “Rom,” he murmurs fondly, and that is not his Shuu☆Zo voice.

You turn away and dig the lube out of the drawer.

He’s left the cravat on; you pull him down by it. He gasps eagerly at that. He’s more expressive now than he used to be. It’s uncomfortably satisfying. 

He lifts his tail up for you so the long streaked fur cascades onto his back, his chest pressed to yours and hips in the air. You hold his head down to your shoulder and slide a lubed finger into him, slow, listening to him moaning in your ear. He pushes back against your finger, rubbing your cock between his asscheeks, his knees pressing into your side to brace himself.

“Another one,” he begs, sucking on your conch piercing.

“You’re so greedy.” You take it slow, as slow as you can stand when your cock is so achingly hard. Listening to him groan impatiently and clutch at your chest is reward enough. 

You could swear he sparkles when you finally push a second finger in alongside the first. It feels like it’s taking longer to work him open than it used to, but you don’t have a lot of faith in your sense of time right now.

“Please,” he whispers, and you keep slowly pumping your fingers in and out of him. “Please,” he says again, louder, “Rom, please.”

You give him one more pump, even slower, spreading your fingers wider as you pull them out of him. You’d love to leave him like that, waiting, but even more than you want to torment him, you really, _really_ want to fuck him.

You drip some lube over your cock as well, cold against your hot skin, but you barely need it when he’s so slick. Besides, you’re still so worked up from his tongue. If you worked your cock any harder you might cum before you even get inside him.

You grab his hips to guide him as he eases himself down onto you. He throws his head back when you’re finally fully in and you watch his beautiful throat as he swallows, his mouth forming an O. It’s a pose, you know, but judging by how he’s squeezing down on you and the noise he makes, it reflects his honest feelings. You don’t mind watching him this way, appreciating your cock inside him.

After a moment he braces himself with a hand on your chest and starts slowly working himself up and back down onto you, hissing with pleasure as your barbs rake him on the way out. His thighs are stronger than they used to be and he speeds up to a pace that you can hardly complain about. You take the opportunity to lazily pump his cock, enjoying the nostalgic feeling of it in your hand. You like knowing you can get him hard like this, even more than you like watching your own cock moving in and out of him. 

He’s not talking anymore, just panting, eyes closed and mouth slack, and you could almost forget that any time has passed since those days. God, he looks so good. You still fit so naturally together. You belong like this, chasing glory and pleasure together. 

“Rom,” he whimpers. “Rom, Rom, Rom.” 

He’s close already. You know that tone. You bite your lip, intent on making sure he cums before you. His movements have become desperate and artless, so you take over from him, holding him still with your hands on his hips while you make short, sharp thrusts into his sweet spot, watching his face as his voice hitches. He rises up on his knees a little, looking exultant as you grab the base of his tail and rise up to meet him.

“Ahh! Rom!” 

He falls apart as he cums, collapsing against you, calling your name. You keep moving in and out of him, slowly, easing him and yourself through it, luxuriating in the feel of him clenching arrhythmically around your cock.

He’s still gasping quietly in your ear as the last of his cum spills across your chest. “Nngh… Rom. I love you…”

Your vision goes white.

How dare he. How dare he say that, after everything he’s done. Now, when you’re vulnerable, when you’re almost ready to believe him.

You flip him over on his back without pulling out. You don’t want to hurt him. You’re not that kind of man, not in bed anyway. But you do want this to have as much of an effect on him as you know it’s going to have on you. You want him to wake up tomorrow and think of you, and the absence of you. It’s only fair.

You’re so close already, maybe closer from the anger and shock; it only takes a few forceful thrusts down into his yielding hole before you’re at the brink. it feels like everything is spilling into him; your anger, your bitterness, your yearning for days long gone. You close your eyes and let it go and in an instant you’re cumming hard, stars in your eyes.

You bury your face in his shoulder and bite down because you don’t know what you might say. Your head is full of flickering memories layered upon memories, his gasps and laughter from years ago and from moments ago, chords and drumbeats, the rain.

It’s a few minutes before you come back to yourself. Shuu is gently stroking your hair. You feel sore and sticky and empty, but strangely peaceful. There’s a mark on his shoulder where you bit him. No broken skin, but it’ll show for a while.

“We should get cleaned off. Sit up,” he says, like nothing out of the ordinary happened. He’s found your tissue box while you were indisposed, it seems, and he tries ineffectively to scrub his cum off your stomach. “Let me get some water.”

He picks up one of your shirts off the floor and shuffles his arms into it as he walks to the bathroom. You were right before; it’s even bigger on him than your shirts used to be. 

“I heard you,” you tell him when he comes back with damp tissues. 

“Heard what?” He plays innocent, rinsing the last traces of himself off your abs.

“What you said when you came.” You won’t repeat it. You don’t want to find out how it would taste in your mouth.

“Oh, that.” He looks down at his chest, trying to find all the places you’ve smeared cum onto him. “Well, it’s true. It was true before and nothing has changed my mind.”

“What do you expect me to do with that?”

“That’s up to you.”

He tosses it off so lightly, as if he doesn’t know or care what it might do to you. As if saying it could be a victimless crime. “You’ve got a funny way of showing it.”

You know he knows you don’t mean the sex. He looks away with a distant smile. “There’s something so romantic about trading the thing dearest to you for your heart’s desire, isn’t there? Like something from a fairytale.”

You don’t answer. What can you say to that? 

“I thought that it would be easier for you if you could make me the villain. I thought you'd channel your rage at me into your music. Redouble your efforts in order to show me the error of my ways, become my strongest rival, come to face me on the greatest stage at the height of both of our careers. That sort of thing.”

You roll onto your stomach so he can’t see your face, or perhaps so you can’t see his. “I quit playing music, Shuu.”

“I know.”

“I quit playing music and became an accountant so that I wouldn't have to see your ghost in every club and every practice room. And it _still_ wasn't enough, because just as I was getting used to you being gone, suddenly there you were, ten times life size, everywhere I went.”

“I know. That must have been hard for you.”

“You broke my _heart_ , Shuu.”

He puts his hand on your back, lightly, like an afterthought. “I'd never had to sacrifice something so important to me before. I thought that I was clever enough to make sure the pain would only fall on me.”

“Nobody's that clever. “

“Yes. I know that now.”

You let the silence sit with you, content in your afterglow bonelessness to lie there as he traces circles between your shoulderblades. You don’t know what to say to him, after all this. You’ve spent years tensing for a fight, for mockery, for the confirmation that he never cared about you. The revelation that you were the sacrifice he made to seal his devil’s bargain doesn’t feel much better, but it sits differently. You don’t know what to think of it yet.

You consider asking if it was worth it, but you realize you don’t want to know. What would you do with the knowledge? Would you undo it if you could, and sacrifice the life you have now?

After a moment he breaks the silence, voice low again. “How long could we really have lasted as Amatelast? We all wanted different things, even if we didn't realize it at the time. You wanted to take the top without having to compromise your musical style.”

You snort. “And you just wanted everyone to love you.”

“Hah!” You’re getting used to his new laugh, despite yourself. “I prefer to say that I wanted to make people happy, but maybe the distinction is academic.”

“All Adam wanted was to be with you.” 

He sighs. “God, I handled that so badly.” 

“I always figured if the band broke up, it would be because he caught us together. I’m still not sure how he didn’t.”

“Eve would have smoothed it over somehow. He was good at that. I'm not sure even I could have broken up the band if I'd had to look him in the eye while doing it.”

“Me on the other hand…”

He looks over at you, waiting until you meet his eyes. “I owed you that much.”

“We all would have done anything for you.”

“I know. That’s what made it so hard.”

You sit with that, too. You aren’t built for these heart to hearts at the best of times. You’re good at anger, mostly, and you’ve learned to be good at self-confidence; you don’t know much about what-ifs, or forgiveness, or vulnerability.

“I don’t regret it, you know. I decided beforehand that I wouldn’t. Regret only stops you from making the most of what’s real.” He smiles down at his hands. “I’m happier now. I think you are, too. But I wish that I had known then how to be kinder to you.”

You imagine this for a moment, and discard it. “You were right eventually. It did make me stronger. Strong enough to keep doing what I was doing. To put my heart into my music and my band. To trust them, despite having been betrayed.”

“I’m glad. I would have been sad if I’d changed you.” He stretches, shaking off drowsiness. “We were only kids, I suppose. We had to grow up.” 

You wonder suddenly if he's waiting for you to suggest you try it again now, as grownups. Maybe he doesn't have the balls to say it, because he's afraid you'll say no. 

You would. You should, anyway. You don't know. It would be cruel to ask now, as the adrenaline and the afterglow is fading and you aren't sure what to make of the evening's revelations. 

Maybe he really did just want to tell you why he did it. Maybe he was afraid you’d never give him another opportunity. Maybe he’s right.

“I should go,” he says suddenly, and you can’t think of a reason to stop him. 

You silently watch him dress himself again, piece by elaborate piece, crouching to lace up his absurd boots by the door. “Don't worry. I'll go a few blocks away before I call the limo. And my drivers know I value discretion. Nobody will be able to link me to you tonight.”

It feels lonelier than it should. But you need this, you need time away from him to think. He makes your head spin.

“If you change your mind, you know how to find me.”

He hasn't asked anything for you to change your mind about, but perhaps he doesn't have to. 

“I have no idea how to find you. You’re the one who always appears out of nowhere.”

He gives you a lopsided smile from the doorway. “That’s how. Bye, Rom.”

His boot heels click down the steps and he’s gone. You watch the door for a few minutes, expecting to hear him knocking at the door with some sort of contrived excuse to come back in, but it remains silent. He’s gone.

You stare at the ceiling. It’s been a long time since your tiny apartment felt too big.

You don’t think you’ll get much sleep tonight.

**Author's Note:**

> it's probably implausible and/or explicitly contrary to some obscure canon that rom lives within feasible walking distance of pyuruland but I liked the idea of them having an awkward walk of pre-shame


End file.
